Dean Obeidallah on Nikolas Cruz: ‘Everything He Spewed Was Consistent with the Trump Agenda’

“Everything [Nikolas Cruz] spewed was consistent with the Trump agenda,” said Dean Obeidallah on Monday’s episode of The Thom Hartmann Program, describing the alleged mass murderer of the Valentine’s Day school shooting in Florida as politically aligned with President Donald Trump.

Partial transcript below:

OBEIDALLAH: Online, [Nikolas Cruz] had spewed anti-Semitic comments. He used the n-word, very anti-immigrant. He talked about Mexicans, wanting to kill them, hating black people because of their skin color.

HARTMANN: Sounds like a normal Trump voter.

OBEIDALLAH: Well, and he had worn a Trump hat a few times, which is only relevant, because you could wear it ironically, but it’s relevant because everything he spewed was consistent with the Trump agenda, to be quite blunt; anti-Muslim, anti-black, anti-immigrant, he’s anti-gay, as well, and of course Donald Trump wanted to impose a ban on transgender Americans serving in our military. Everything there was every box of a white supremacist, and with the swastikas adding to that, there’s something going on, and our media’s really uncomfortable exploring this. That’s what I really get a sense of.

Politically-motivated murders are mostly rooted in “right-wing” politics, said Hartmann.

“Over the last twenty years, we’ve had more people killed by right-wingers than any other group,” said Hartmann, receiving agreement from Obeidallah.

“Less than two percent” of terrorist attacks in Europe between 2009 and 2014 were committed by Muslims, alleged Obeidallah in a 2015-published article.

The news media landscape broadly hypes sensational crimes committed by non-whites, Muslims, and foreigners while diminishing the same types of crimes committed by whites, said Obeidallah.

“The media is run by ratings and what sells,” said Obeidallah. “The media narrative sells the scary brown guy who’s a Muslim or who’s a foreigner, or the scary black guy. The scary white guy has to be mentally unstable.”

Whites who “commit horrible acts” — contrary to their black or brown counterparts — do not have their political motivations examined by the news media, alleged Obeidallah. “The media narrative is that, if you’re white, that mental illness must be almost exclusively the reason for why you commit horrible acts, and if you’re brown or black, they look for other things. If you’re Muslim, we know exactly where they go.”

“Over half of the extremist-related deaths on U.S. soil were by white supremacists,” said Obeidallah, drawing on assertions made by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization ostensibly committed to combating anti-Semitism.

“Half of the active hate groups [in America] are white supremacists,” said Obeidallah, drawing on assertions made the Southern Policy Law Center (SPLC), an organization ostensibly committed to tracking “hate groups.”